Christopher Southgate, ed. God Humanity and the Cosmos: A Companion to the Science-Religion Debate (London:
T & T Clark, 2005), xxv + 443 Pps., $72.00.
Christopher Southgate is Lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter. In this book, Southgate shows
why the ongoing debate between science and religion is one of the most critical areas for modern theology.
Universities and Seminaries that are producing tomorrow’s scholars need to nourish the sensibilities of their students
in this dialogue. For years, there was a lack of texts that sought to fill the lacuna of introducing this dialogue to
undergraduates as well as first year graduate students. In 1999, however, Christopher Southgate released the first
edition of God Humanity and the Cosmos.
This second edition, six years later, contains a revised version of the contents provided in the first edition,
along with a thorough survey of the theological, philosophical, and historical issues surrounding the science-religion
debate. The new edition also examines theological responses to the ecological crisis, biotechnology, as well to how
science is treated and valued in education. This title offers exploration of both popular accounts of the debate
between science and religion, as well as a review of the related material as found in specialized research
publications. The text requires little background knowledge in order to be read fruitfully. Southgate has assembled a
panel of eleven different authors, all experienced teachers and researchers, to contribute to this text.
This title is intended to be a companion to the debate for general readers, as well as a resource for teachers
and students in undergraduate level courses. Important for the intended audience, whenever a technical term is used
for the first time, it is accompanied with an explanation or definition. It possesses a useful index, and the
bibliography is indispensible if one desires further study in this burgeoning field. As a whole, the book is divided
into five parts. Part one introduces the reader to the science and religion debate (chapters 1–4). Part two details how
specific sciences interact with theological and religious claims (5–7); part three follows, exploring further the
relevant theological resources available within contemporary Christian theology (8–10). The fourth part of the book
addresses science’s place within society (11–14). The book is ended with part five speculating on how the dialogue
is likely to develop in the future (15). In what follows, I shall highlight more specifically various salient points from
the individual chapters.
Southgate and Michael Poole introduce the debate between science and religion in the first chapter,
highlighting various typologies of the relationship between science and religion from Barbour, Stenmark, and Peters.
They argue for a critical realist stance in science, one which examines the comprehensiveness of the theory in taking
account of all relevant data, the internal consistency of the theory, and the compactness of the theory. Additionally,
they contend for a ‘theology of nature’ versus a ‘natural theology’. Paul D. Murray and David Wilkinson offer
systematic considerations as to what significance that the theology of creation possesses within the Christian
tradition in chapter two. They track the development of this motif’s importance through Augustine, to Aquinas,
through the Reformation, up unto the present day. John Hedley Brooke attempts to depict in chapter three how the
relations between scientific and religious beliefs have been constructed and understood in the past. In so doing, he
notes the theses of essential conflict and essential harmony, the position that argues advances in science and
technology have fuelled the processes of secularization, as well as the thesis that new developments in twentieth
century science opens new spaces for human spirituality. Murray contributes to the volume again in chapter four,
noting the points of tension, correlation, and compatibility between truth and reason from the perspectives of both
science and religion; he sets forth a post-foundationalist perspective that in essence debunks the positivistic
assumption of the rationality of science versus the irrationality of theology.
Lawrence Osborn begins part two of the book with an essay that depicts how modern physics has departed
from Newtonian physics, and notes some theological implications concerning the end of the universe, the
rediscovery of purpose, and the impact of the new sciences of chaos and complexity. In perhaps the most
illuminating chapter of all, Southgate, Michael Robert Negus, and Andrew Robinson discuss theology and
evolutionary biology in chapter six. They begin by looking at the topic of human evolution, then review how the
science of biological evolution has developed since Darwin, and then dialogue with various authors deal with the
merits and limitations of reductionism. They note that Darwinian evolution hinges upon three concepts: variation,
heritability, and differential survival (or natural selection), although they recognize that natural selection is no longer
seen to be the exclusive mechanism of evolutionary change (173). Fraser Watts contributes an essay on psychology
and theology that comprises chapter seven. He argues that there are no securely based research findings in
psychology that conflict with religious belief, although there are some unwarranted extrapolations from the field of
psychology that raise conflicts with religion.
Southgate again contributes in chapter eight, which begins part three of the book, offering some resources
from Process thought regarding the construction of a model of the relationship between God, humanity, and the
cosmos, which has import for ecological concerns in the current age. In the process, he discusses the dipolarity of
God, composed of a primordial and consequent nature, theodicy, and the critique of patriarchy. In chapter nine,
Negus and Southgate offer theological resources for thinking on God and the world from outside the Christian
tradition, including Taoism, Buddhism, and the Gaia hypothesis. Southgate offers a lucid classification of four views
on divine action test case for Divine action in chapter ten: 1) theistic naturalism, 2) general providential action
without gaps in the causal order, 3) particular providential action without gaps in the causal order, and 4) particular
providential action employing particular gaps in the causal order. Therein, he identifies various authors, ancient and
contemporary, and where they fit into his classification schemata.
Part four of the book begins with Michael Poole’s essay on science and education in chapter eleven, and
then discusses how Islam approaches science with an essay from Negus, which comprises chapter twelve. Jacqui
Stewart offers an essay on technology and Christianity in chapter thirteen, which is then followed by a chapter on
biotechnology, written by Celia Deane-Drummond. Southgate provides a look to the future in chapter fifteen, which
highlights how the relation between science and religion need not be perceived as one based on conflict.
As the volume is divided into five ‘books’, it is possible to read the volume as a whole or to use its
individual sections (books). This book should appeal to patrons who have sympathies to postmodernism, as it
highlights the necessity for contextualized discussion within the science and religion debate. This title may also be
used a course textbook in a listing that explicitly covers the relation between science and religion. It argues that
science and religion can be mutually constructive in their exchanges with each other. Moreover, it projects the
debate as a complex activity rather than as merely a realist search for progressively truer data.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA